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This is a pause from the craziness that has ensued since the kickstarter ended and season 2 of the show began. A friend of many and an acquaintance of mine, Tristan Devin, ended his life here a couple days ago. He was definitely a revered comic in town and someone that I had only one interaction with. I went up to his coffee shop to work on a sketch with full intention of finding an excuse to talk to him about the show, and seeing what happened. All I remember is he was so easy to talk to and earnestly encouraging about what I was doing, something that I had not found as common place. I was nervous about talking to him the whole time I sat there drinking my chai, but once I finally said a couple of words (putting my cup back because it took me that long) he was so easy to jive with. Being a person who works on highs and lows, walking out with that confidence someone else bestows in you was a feeling I physically remember caring. As though I had been validated.

I know that he was a lot more to many of my fellow comedians and performers in town, and it sucks when a community as small as ours loses the battle. A lot of us find comedy because it is our release from whatever demons we battle with, and we always wonder if and what we could’ve done or said different — heck I’m doing that right now — but at this point I hope he has found peace and laughter in the great beyond.

Yesterday I posted about wanting you in the Rain City video, and right now I’m going to tell you how. Will this work? Welp, only one way to find out. Here’s what we’ll need to do to make it happen… below is a list things that you get to pick from. you can do one, or all of them. each should be around 5 seconds so that if you do all of them, the video is around 40 seconds.

Get crazy with it. These are all open to interpretation (except dick’s fries, do not reinterpret that). Once you’ve made your video, upload it to youtube and either post the link on the fan page, or send me an email with the subject “OH SNAP”. By sending me the video you agree that I can rip your video, make a video out of it, and use that video for my own personal gain… cool? Cool. You will have until Tuesday night to upload something, so take some time over the weekend and make it happen baby!

let’s talk business. i want you in my video. yeah, you. why? because 1) you’re ridiculously good looking, but without your support id never have gotten to this point. my thoughts are a little messy, but here’s the deal. about two months ago i wrote a “Rack City” parody, and about one month ago it was recorded. although I was distracted by doing actual paying work, i didn’t want to let it die.

is this joke dead? HELL YEAH. is that going to stop us? HOPEFULLY NOT. so here’s what we’re going to do… i’m going to ask that you record a 30 second video with a handful of items (like 5 seconds of standing somewhere in the city) and upload them to youtube. i will then rip that video, and the people with the most views will be in the video along with a judges choice from our expert panel sponsored by coke zero. NOT. I’m going to edit [possibly] everyone into the video.

What exactly are you going to put in this video? Easy tiger… I’ll post that tomorrow, but I told you I’d post something today. Listen to the track, if you don’t like it — promptly turn it off. Then I’ll post the instructions tomorrow, by which time you probably haven’t read this anyway.

I originally recorded this as a video, but I looked like a deuche (see Exhibit A).

Exhibit A

First, there is no new episode. I’m going to tell you what’s going on with Local Brew, because I wouldn’t even be to this point without you. So I’ll interview myself (?) and hope it covers a lot, especially for people who don’t know me.

1)Who the f*ck are you?My name’s rauce, at least that’s what twitter says. I left my comfy job producing videos at a local agency in January to make the show after a year+ of saving, learning, and growing bigger balls. Everyone in the show is a friend and I’d never have been able to do this without some help, especially from Ron and Tim (aka Hulk), who were my go to performers. Virtually all of the production – writing, editing, directing, filming, producing, etc – was me. Not because I wanted it that way, but because people have lives and the commitment to help without getting paid is a tough sell. The help I did get was amazing, unexpected, and if I had a yacht I’d take them on a Grey Goose booze cruise as a thank you.

2) Why aren’t there going to be more episodes?Money. I designed the show in a format that could hopefully move to broadcast and become a modern Almost Live. After meeting with some decision makers at King5, it’s apparent that times are different and despite having a good product, per se, the business model and talent to do it isn’t something that seems to interest them right off the bat. Is it a 100% no? Definitely not. But I have to make smart decisions, and not knowing much about business — I’m taking the time to stop producing and start looking at the financial feasibility of this.

3) Don’t you have sponsors?Nope. I’m going to try and find a title sponsor that I have a mutual beneficial relationship. A company with a product or service I support, not just a cash flow. If you own a brewery, you should sponsor the show… pretty please.

4) What’s the future look like?
Production will hopefully resume in June, but I don’t know. I might decide that it’s not an option and go back into getting a ‘real job’ to save up more money, and make occasional dumb videos like everyone else. I’ve been making song parodies since middle school, and would probably just do stuff like that — not specific to Seattle. I love this city, but it’s a matter of potential audience. Which I hate, because I really think a hyper local comedy show fits this place. Let’s be serious, we are hilarious.

5) Anything else?
Just thank you to all my friends and supporters that have helped me from big things to little things. If you’ve read this far, you’re in that category. An asshole comment on youtube would ruin my day, but then someone would leave a positive note on the facebook page and pick me up. I’m an average white middle class dude, I’m very hate-able to the faceless haters. Other than that, if you subscribe to the youtube channel that will help tremendously. Everything’s a numbers game.

Here I am, an hour away from presenting to the head honchos at King5. It’s kind of crazy that I actually planned all this shit from over a year ago. I knew that everything I’d do would come down to 10 minutes of reviewing what I’ve done, and telling them it’s nothing compared to what we could do. Will they buy it? Who knows. Odds are, they’ve already made some sort of decision. Then again, maybe they’ve only watched a clip and are getting in because they heard I was bringing free food. Obviously I’m not. Although I thought about bringing some of my Cavalia toys as a memento.

I’ve rehearsed my shit, and I’m even wearing nice clothes. I elected against a suit or even khakis. Shit, tucking my shirt in is a stretch. I could play the part, but part of this pitch is selling me. Little do they know this nice nordstrom shirt was a dime piece I yanked from a MSFT commercial I did. Free stuff for days. Been listening to rap music all morning and bout ready to get it done. All I know is that I’m gonna get wasted tonight. The question is will I be listening to Eminem or Lil Jon?

The past two weeks have somewhat been a blur. Running from location to location, changing clothes every five seconds, trying to organize all the shots of the music video, blah blah blah. I’m pretty happy with it given the number of times I was either told no, didn’t hear a reply, or was told yes and then had a no show in regards to both locations and people. For shits and giggles, I’ll list the high profile asks I made:

Sir Mix-a-Lot: I’ve been trying to get this guy for awhile. In fact, I had originally written a spoof of the Matrix trailers for the first episode (which ended up being Snowmageddon instead) where he would play Morpheus. I got in contact with his manager through a very sweet friend of mine, and ended not hearing back until the first episode was released. At which point his manager was like — oh hey! I met with him and his business partner, spent an hour just kinda shooting the shit, drinking wine and laughing about being not Caucasian. Afterwards, I never heard back about getting Mix in a sketch. Then when I wrote “Seattle” I pinged him again, and then actually talked to Mix at this social media conference he was speaking at (yeah, no comment). Was he being mobbed? No. When I talked to him about the show, he didn’t really know what I was talking about (thanks manager). Like a lot of people, the manager and said partner were more interested in talking about their side business than anything we were supposed to talk about. A lesson I’ve learned rather quickly: People are SELFISH, but in subtle ways. Needless to say, I didn’t get Mix to sing the hook. Am I bitter? Not at all. I understand how things work.

Tom Douglas: I saw him at the gym I belong to (yeah, belong to and go to, very different) doing a cooking demo. I went up to him and introduced myself, sighting that he’d actually already been in a video with Actor Ross, and told him about the show. I didn’t make an ask, but gave him a card and told that one day if I’m successful maybe I could get him to be on the show. Har har. I hate two things: being annoying and kissing ass. That was about 5 weeks ago, and then about 3 weeks ago a friend of mine that works at Dahlia gae me the email of one of his marketing or PR protectors. I sent a very nice email, detailing that I’d only need a very quick cameo. Never heard a reply.

Melinda Gates: Ok she’s the only one that gets off easy. I know she’s too important, worldwide, and busy doing way more important stuff…but hey when you have friends at PATH, someone might know someone somewhere. I got an immediate no chance from said friends and that’s OKAY. I can deal with outright rejection, I’m an actor. I still love her and hope to meet her one day.

Murraythe Bartender: Okay well first of all, he doesn’t have a cell phone and his banana phone gets terrible reception. BUT I met him when I was at my friend’s art show, and she later sent him the song and the ask to be in the video…and he said yes! I then emailed him the info, and proceeded to never hear back. My friend said, hey I’m meeting him for a drink on St. Patty’s day, come join us real quick. Cool. So, in the midst of running around shooting, I stopped in to Whiskey Bar and did my diplomatic duties to lure him in. He said he could do Monday afternoon (two days before it’s supposed to be done), and that he’d let me know what time. I said, cool, I’m yours. No homo. Needless to say, I never heard back.

Detlef Schrempf: I had a couple that were supposedly connected to, but one of my new friends who connected with me offering help after seeing the show seemed to get pretty close. Unfortunately though, he wasn’t in town or something. I still would love to meet him, and apologize for using a shrimp as his body double.

Shawn Kemp: Well, I trolled his restaurant and I think I’m the only one who didn’t see him hanging out there. Through seven steps, I got connected to his friend who apparently sometimes fields requests… but he never picked up the phone. I guess you could say we got DISconnected, aaahhh hahahaha. I’m funny. I just want him to dunk on me, is that too much to ask? That’s seriously a childhood dream.

Dave Matthews: Ok, I didn’t even try this one. I did get kicked out of Trader Joe’s though.

That’s just the PEOPLE I tried to get a midst filming, recording, and everything else… forget locations. Ironically, the only location that I actually had consent to record at was my homies at Marination Mobile. Was it because I’ve consumed about 100 of their tacos in the past 2 years? Maybe. But they were absolutely warm and accommodating, without asking for jack shit back. They even gave me some free tacos…which is of course, why I wanted to film there in the first place.

Anyways, this is way too long… but after what seemed like a very long two weeks, I feel good that I got it done and it didn’t suck. This was me vs myself in every sense and despite how I had drawn up the video originally, it turned out and I triumphed over the large part of me that wanted to give up. The video got posted on the PI with the writer adding

I’m taking a BRIEF moment in this craziness to acknowledge that I really think I’m the craziest mother fucker I know. The idea that I could pull off a music video with 40+ shots and 18 locations in a week is straight insane. Add on top of the at the typhoon that’s sweeping Seattle right now, and any sane person would arrive at the same verdict. But in all this lack of confidence, support, and general encouragement from a majority of my peers there are these little bits of gasoline that spark my little engine.

Two days ago as I was literally like, what is the easy way to shoot this music video and scrap this idea of showing everything I’m rapping about (yeah, I said rapping… it’s a Will Smith parody). Then I got a text from one of my best friends in Florida tell me he’s pumped for the next episode. It wasn’t much, but when there isn’t any real consistent team those little meaningless green lights can turn things around. Then yesterday, a midst snow and rain fall I had scheduled two friends to help shoot the opening shots…which are outdoor … with me riding a bike. The text read “It’s dumping snow over here…still want to do this?” To which I answered “fuck yeah.” Everyone and everything has told me no, I’ve adapted this ‘just press play’ attitude. Sure enough the snow/rain stopped for 3 hours (the sun even came out!), and when we finished the shit weather resumed. It was crazy.

Here I am again today, running around just me and a camera… finding blessings and encouragement from people I barely know. Who knew that kindness from strangers, of all things, would be my coal. Well, off to Queen Anne — where I was sniping a shot of someone’s Prius not but an hour ago.